CBS Poll Reaffirms Tax Cut For Upper Class Is Wildly Unpopular

The poll finds that 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year. That roughly matches the proposal put forth by the White House, which wants to extend the cuts only for incomes less than $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals.

Just 26 percent of Americans say they support extending the cuts for all Americans, even those earning above the $250,000 level, which is the GOP proposal.

So 14% don’t want any tax cuts extended. That means 74% are against tax cuts being extended to those folks.

Wow.

Here’s how the numbers shake out when you look at political affiliation…

Note how many Independents want them to expire for all. 17%, the highest of any group.

Maybe that’s why House Dems felt emboldened enough to pass the tax cuts without the extension for the wealthiest Americans. And several Republicans joined them. Tea Partiers…you’ll be interested in one House member who voted for it…

The Republicans who voted for the bill were Reps. Walter Jones Jr. (N.C.), Ron Paul (Texas) and John Duncan (Tenn.). Several Democrats who hail from wealthier districts as well as a number of Democrats who lost on Nov. 2 were among the defectors.

Ron Paul sided with the Dems? Wha???

Still, going back to the poll…EconomistMom sums up with the cartoon above and the title of her post: Can We Do the Non-Crazy Thing with the Bush Tax Cuts?

I am no longer going to “let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” I am no longer going to try to talk people into seeing that the “right” thing to do with the Bush tax cuts would be to let them all expire. (The even “righter” thing would have been to never have enacted them in the first place.) I am just going to urge the policymakers to avoid doing something with the Bush tax cuts that seems totally contradictory to the fiscal policy goals–both shorter-term and longer-term–that they claim to have. In other words, let’s try to avoid doing something with the Bush tax cuts that seems totally crazy given what we say our fiscal policy goals are for both adequately supporting the (still fragile) short-term economy and better encouraging economic growth by reducing the deficit over the longer term.

And for a point of comparison on what those those tax cuts means to the deficit…

The White House plan which would not extend the cuts on high earners would cost an estimated $3 trillion over ten years. (By point of contrast, the controversial deficit commission proposal released this week would save about $4 trillion in that time.)

Personally, I’m not in favor of giving individuals who make over $85,000 and families who make over $150,000 more tax cuts. To me, and maybe I’m in the minority here, but those are upper lower class, not middle class. Seems like you could save A LOT of money there and reduce our budget deficit even further. And let’s remember…they’re still getting a tax cut on the money they earn under those numbers.

In any event, what do you think? Extend them for all? Extend them for some? Extend them for none?